


Pochemuchka (почемучка)

by orphan_account



Series: threads of memory [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Gen, Parental Riza Hawkeye, Parental Roy Mustang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25954153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Pochemuchka(n.) A child who asks many questions; an overly curious child.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye & Original Character(s), Riza Hawkeye & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye & Team Mustang, Roy Mustang & Original Character(s)
Series: threads of memory [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1883734
Comments: 8
Kudos: 20





	Pochemuchka (почемучка)

**Author's Note:**

> We've all met this kid before.

The night had been uneventful, up until the strange girl’s appearance.

They were in a tiny southern border town, trying to track down a small Aerugan gun smuggling ring. Nothing very exciting, but still worthwhile. Their instructions had been fairly simple: find the warehouse, arrest everyone there, shut it down. It shouldn’t have taken more than a few hours.

Unfortunately, they hadn’t taken the town itself into consideration.

“We got the address,” Havoc muttered. “We have the fucking _latitude and longitude coordinates._ But you still don’t know where it is?”

“Not my fault these streets were designed by a drunken ten-year-old,” Mustang snapped. 

“I’m pretty sure ten-year-olds aren’t allowed to become drunk, sir,” Riza murmured, trying to hide a smile. They had been wandering through the mazelike web of streets for at least three hours, and none of them were at their most agreeable.

“Lieutenant Hawkeye is correct. According to section 2, line 337 of—” Falman began.

Breda held up a hand. “With all due respect, _we know already_.”

They continued in silence for a few more blocks, each looking around for the elusive warehouse. Either the town was bigger than they had thought, or they were going in circles. The narrow streets faded to dirt and mud in some areas, and the gutters were full of water smelling vaguely of rust. Each of the shops and apartments lining the narrow sidewalk was shuttered and dark, the only light coming from the occasional lamplit upper room. This place wasn’t even important enough to warrant streetlights—how the hell had a bunch of gunrunners opened up shop _here?_

They turned down an alley, Breda and Havoc now bickering about latitude points. Mustang was reading and rereading the file they had been given, searching for information they might have missed. Fuery and Falman were walking in silence, resigned to their fate of wandering these near-deserted streets for the rest of the night.

There was a metallic clatter above them. Tensing, Riza looked up, one hand halfway to her thigh holster. There was nothing on the fire escape. It was probably a rat. No one else seemed to have noticed—it was likely nothing. 

After a few more minutes of trudging through side streets, there was the same clatter on a different fire escape. Their entire team looked up this time. Riza tensed, brushing her hand over her pistol. She could have sworn she saw something move. Whatever it was still didn't show itself--maybe she was just being paranoid. She waited a few seconds, scanning the area around them, but there was still nothing.

Well, until a little girl suddenly vaulted over a railing and landed in a crouch right in front of them.

Breda jumped backward, nearly bowling over Fuery, who squeaked in surprise and tried to hide behind Havoc. Riza slowly re-holstered her gun from where she had drawn it. It was just a child. But then again, Edward and Alphonse were “just children” as well. It didn’t hurt to be on guard, she supposed.

The girl straightened up and grinned, showing a gap where her front teeth should have been. “Hi!” she said brightly. 

All six soldiers stared in shock for several seconds. In the light from a pub window, Riza noticed that she looked to be between nine and ten years old, with skinny ankles and wrists, although not emaciated. Her skin was several shades darker than any of theirs, although still lighter than the Ishvalan coloring. Her eyes looked to be either black or dark brown, as did her hair, which was—oddly enough—done in two elaborate braids running down either side of her head. Contrasting this ornate hairstyle, her feet were bare, and she was wearing a long-sleeved, heavily patched green shirt tucked into dirty dungarees cut off at the knee.

It was Mustang who recovered first. “Hello,” he said, in a carefully measured tone. The rest of the team was still recovering from the initial shock. “What’s your name?”

The little girl frowned and crossed her bony arms, drawing herself up to her full four and a half feet of height. “Why do you want to know, yeah?” she replied, narrowing her eyes.

Mustang blinked. This was not the usual response. “So I know what to call you.”

The girl deliberated for a few seconds, dark eyebrows furrowing. “You can call me Butterfly.” She paused. “No. Crystal Butterfly, yeah? No, Stabby Sword. My name is Crystal Butterfly Stabby Sword. Pleased to meet you.” She bowed neatly at the waist.

Her superior seemed to be at a loss for words. Riza stepped in. “Pleased to meet you too, Crystal Butterfly Stabby Sword. Could you leave us alone for a bit? We’re on an important mission.” She started walking again, and the rest of the team followed suit, although their response was a bit delayed.

That had been the wrong thing to say. The girl’s dark eyes widened, and she began jogging to keep up with them. “An important mission, yeah? Can I come?”

Riza fought the headache she knew was coming. “No,” she stated firmly. Anything more than that would only intrigue this little gremlin further.

The girl stuck out her lower lip a truly impressive distance. “Aw. You’re no fun. Wait, are you soldiers?”

Silence. None of them wanted to give her ammunition for more questions.

Her eyes narrowed. “You _are_ soldiers, yeah? Where’re you all from? You’re not from the South. You ever shoot someone? Can I see your guns?” She was now nearly hopping about in excitement, a gigantic grin spreading across her face at the possibility of deadly firearms.

Havoc took a few hasty steps away from her, closer to Breda. “Kid, where are your parents?”

The girl quirked her mouth from side to side, thinking. “My parents...are a pumice stone and a peach.” she said, tilting her head. “I don’t know how I got born or which one’s my mom and which is my dad, but they love me, and that’s what matters, yeah?”

Havoc blinked. He wasn’t the only one.

She started humming happily and twirling around their little group, taking full advantage of their stunned silence to ask questions of ever-increasing difficulty. “You look Xingese,” she said, standing on her tiptoes to shove her face as close to Mustang’s as she could get it. He leaned back slightly. “Well, kinda. Not really. Only a little. Are you from Xing? Or was your mom from Xing? Or your dad?”

Riza massaged her temples. Her teammates were some of the most skilled men she knew, but when confronted with an inquisitive child, they were functionally useless. “He’s Xingese royalty. His mother was the thirty-sixth wife of the Emperor, but she ran off with an Amestrian ambassador and had him. He ran away to join the military when he was fifteen.”

The girl’s eyes widened to the size of saucers. “Really?”

Riza shot her a dark look. “No. Stop asking questions.”

Her expression turned calculating. “If I’m quiet, you’ll take me on your secret mission, yeah?”

“No.”

“I won’t, then.” She immediately turned her attention to Havoc, jabbing a grubby finger at the pack of cigarettes in his breast pocket. “You smoke, yeah? That’s bad for your lungs,” she lectured. “My friend Lily’s dad smokes, and now he breathes weird. But you sound okay.”

Havoc stared at her as if she had descended from another planet.

“Just keep walking,” Riza muttered to Mustang. Maybe this little menace would get bored.

No such luck. “You’re pretty. I didn’t know women could be soldiers,” the little girl announced, skipping over to walk next to Riza. She caught sight of her handgun holsters. “How many guns do you have? How do you keep your hair up like that? It’s a clip thingy, yeah?”

Riza brushed her hand over her hair clip self-consciously. “Four right now, and yes.”

“Can you show me how to shoot one?” 

_“Absolutely not."_ What was this kid's infatuation with deadly weapons, anyway?

She scowled, then pointed another grubby finger at Mustang. “Are you married to him?” 

Mustang let out an undignified mix between a snort and a cough. Riza glared at him, then turned back to the girl. “No. I’m his bodyguard.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?” she asked innocently. Or as innocently as a little demon in braids and dungarees could be.

“No. I stop people from killing him. That’s it.”

Her eyes grew big. “How many times has that happened?”

“Too many to count,” Riza sighed.

The girl tilted her head, intrigued. “Why’s he so important? Is he an alchemist?”

Mustang stood up straighter. “Yes I am, young lady. A state alchemist, actually.”

The girl didn’t seem all that impressed. “My dad was an alchemist,” she said matter-of-factly, examining a chipped thumbnail. “My mom was a winemaker from Aerugo. She left him because he wouldn’t make gold for her. She wanted to take me with her, but I ran away and joined the circus as a lion tamer. Then I ran away from there because the food was bad.” She stuck out her tongue. “Now I feed birds and throw chairs at people.” She skipped ahead happily, going to walk next to Fuery.

“The peach and pumice stone made more sense,” muttered Breda.

Their new self-added teammate was busy questioning Fuery. “I like your glasses. You can see without them, yeah? Or are you one of those people that are pretty much blind? Can you see my hand?” She waved her hand enthusiastically in front of poor Fuery’s face, who nearly knocked Falman over in his haste to get away from her. 

“Your hair looks cool,” she said, turning to Breda, who lifted an eyebrow. “It’s red, yeah? But not really red? Kinda brown. Anyway, it’s cool. And you’re too tall,” she continued, rounding on Falman, who looked rather like a deer caught in headlights. “Your hair is gray, yeah? It’s silver, maybe. But only the top part. Why?”

It was almost funny, Riza mused--watching a team of five highly competent soldiers brought to their knees by a nine-year-old girl with both her front teeth missing.

The lack of answers to her questions only seemed to fuel the girl’s inquisitiveness. “Are you gonna shoot people?” she asked, skipping along in the middle of their group. “I’m coming, yeah? Can I have a piggyback ride? My feet are tired.”

Riza tried to glare daggers at her. “No and no. I already told you, you’re _not_ coming.” She turned her glare on the rest of the team, who were busying themselves in not attracting the attention of the little ball of questions. Traitors.

“Actually,” Mustang mused, “Do you know where this warehouse is?” He shoved the crumpled map at the girl and pointed to where they were supposed to go.

She raised a calculating eyebrow. “I’m sure I do, yeah? But what’ll you give me?”

Mustang looked very close to turning this girl into an annoying-child-size pile of ashes. “If you don’t go into the warehouse, you get a piggyback ride and…a sandwich. Deal?”

“Pinky promise?”

He sighed. “Pinky promise.”

She held up a hand. “Wait. This is a good sandwich, yeah?”

“She’s worse than Elric,” Riza heard Havoc mutter under his breath.

“'Elric'? You know the Fullmetal Alchemist?” inquired the girl, all thoughts of pinky promises and sandwiches forgotten.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Mustang sighed. “Where’d you hear of him?”

She scowled. “He came through here a few months ago, yeah? Made a big mess over by the river. Lots of rock pillars and stuff.”

Mustang rubbed his forehead. “Definitely Fullmetal. Now, show me where the warehouse is.”

“Fine,” she mumbled. “But you’re giving me a piggyback ride there, yeah?” Without waiting for an answer, she took a running leap at Mustang and clung to his back like a limpet. He staggered under the sudden weight. Havoc stifled a guffaw.

“Seems like I am,” he wheezed.

“Take a right, then go straight for three blocks, yeah?” she chirped happily.

“Correct,” Falman agreed.

“Pretty sure she was being rhetorical,” Fuery whispered.

Their newly expanded team continued through town, a bit slower now that Mustang had been turned into a pack animal against his will. The girl, whom Riza had decided to call Squirrel, kept up a steady stream of questions, seemingly undiscouraged when these yielded few answers. “Why do you want to go to the warehouse?” she asked. “There’s bad guys there, yeah?” 

When no one answered, she shrugged her narrow shoulders and began whistling loudly. It was a bit difficult to make out the tune, seeing as her two front teeth were missing, but after a few seconds Riza recognized it as an Aerugan folk song. “You go to the right,” she said, pointing down the left-hand alley. When Mustang stopped, confused, she pointed more energetically. “ _Right!_ That way!” 

“Er--all right,” Mustang said, vaguely confused but assuming (correctly) that it would be futile to argue with her.

“Go _faster_ ,” Squirrel whined after a few seconds.

“I am _never_ having children,” Havoc grumbled. Fuery and Breda nodded vigorously.

The girl directed her trademark pouty scowl in their direction. “What are you talking about? I’m an absolute _delight_ to be around.”

“Debatable,” Mustang murmured. 

Squirrel gave the back of his head a glare that could cut glass, but only for a few seconds before finding that being insulted wasn’t worthwhile. She chewed her thumbnail, dark gaze scanning the street. “This is it!” she cried out suddenly, pointing to a nondescript warehouse that looked exactly like all of the others lining the street. They could have walked past it a dozen times in their wanderings.

Mustang sighed in relief as she slid off his back. “Thanks, kid. Now, shoo. We don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Can I at least watch?” Squirrel asked pleadingly.

Riza gathered her remaining patience and knelt down in front of her. “Listen, Crystal Butterfly Stabby Sword, you’ve been a big help. But none of us want to see you get hurt, and that’s a possibility here. You need to get out of here, okay?”

Squirrel gave her a small gap-toothed smile. “Okay,” she said quietly. It was the shortest sentence Riza had heard her speak. 

Mustang ruffled her hair, and she giggled. “Go on, kid. Go back to wherever you came from.”

Riza thought she might have heard Havoc whisper “Look at Mommy and Daddy,” but she wasn’t sure. She shot her deadliest glare at him anyway. He gulped and hastily looked away. Breda snickered.

Squirrel gave a sloppy salute and bowed to each one of them before sprinting back the way they had come. In just a few seconds, she had vanished completely.

“All right, men,” Roy said, straightening and pulling on his gloves. “We have some gun smugglers to catch.”

* * *

The actual job had been uneventful, and if Riza was being honest, a bit of a letdown. They had found crates of ammunition and firearms, but either the smugglers had changed their schedule or had been tipped off that the military had been coming, because there were no life forms in the building other than a few cockroaches and one particularly chubby rat. Fuery had radioed Southern Command to send in more soldiers to cart off the weapons, and they had returned to Headquarters both relieved and disappointed.

Strangely enough, Squirrel hadn’t shown up to claim her promised sandwich. All Riza saw or heard of her was a faint clatter of bare feet on metal above them, or a small figure darting down an alley. It might have just been her imagination, or it might have been Crystal Butterfly Stabby Sword, or Squirrel, or whatever her name really was. 

But then again, it might have just been a rat.

* * *

_Nine years later_

Riza sighed.

The Southern Command Center was so stuffy in summer. One would think that with the military’s budget, they could at least spring for better air conditioning. But no. At least they were only going to be here for a week. General Lamar had requested a conference with Roy, and if it was a conference he wanted, it was a conference he was going to get. Even if the temperatures were truly terrifying at times.

There was a scuffling of footsteps at the door. Riza looked up. Did someone want to see General Mustang? They didn’t have anyone scheduled. Interesting…

“Oh, so he’s a General now? Must be doing well for himself,” a muffled, but decidedly female, voice said from behind the door. Roy looked up from the papers on his desk. He caught Riza’s eye and shrugged, just as confused as she was.

The door suddenly flew open. Standing in the doorway, feet firmly planted on the beige-tiled floor, was a tan-skinned girl with two elaborate braids running down either side of her head--somehow, the style was vaguely familiar. She wore a crisp, white shirt and dark slacks, and the gold military pin on her collar looked new. She seemed fresh out of the Academy, but carried herself with the authority of a Major. As they stared in surprise at her sudden appearance, a wide grin spread across her face. 

“Happy to see me again, yeah?”

**Author's Note:**

> The dialogue for this was so much fun to write!  
> Comments are always appreciated! :)


End file.
